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Originally Posted by kennyc
Agreed. That will bring move people to ebooks, but it certainly won't be ubiquitous at that price point, nor do I ever expect pbooks to go away.
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I think we are seeing increasing interest in ebooks, and awareness in the industry. I just got email the other day from HarperCollins with a pointer to a survey about my buying and reading habits, and my usage of and desire for ebooks. Of particular interest were questions about various feathers they could add to ebooks that would make me pay a higher price. Given discussions elsewhere on MR where I've talked about ePub being a container that can hold other things besides the ebook text, and suggestion of "Directors Cut?" editions with extra features like an audio book copy, video interview with the author, etc., it was nice to see a major publisher thinking along those lines. Wonder if someone there has been reading MR?
If anything, I expect to see ebooks cannibalize mass market paperback sales. But I don't expect to see those go away, either. Too many people like pbooks. I know a chap on the West Coast making a very good living producing POD versions of public domain stuff from Project Gutenberg and selling the paper versions on line. Why not just get the electronic version? Because lots of folks still like paper books. The folks who buy his texts might like to read them on a dedicated reader, but readers are and will be a niche market. Not everyone is interested in getting Yet Another Electronic Device that might get lost/broken.
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Dennis